The most basic concept in energy is efficiency. Whatever source of energy is ultimately involved, the goal is to maximize the total energy generated. It's simple logic: it's wasteful to use an excessive amount of energy in the process of creating energy.

It stands to reason, then, that companies involved in generating energy carefully watch not just the energy they create but also the energy they use. Throughout the process, they monitor for any inefficiency that could be undermining its efficiency.

Speaking of undermining, the process of mining the raw materials needed for generating power is one area where a lot of energy can be wasted. There's no escaping the fact that the trucks, tools, and heavy equipment involved in mining coal and petroleum require a large amount of energy. The industry understands that. But they also understand that in an era of razor-thin profit margins and ever-greater government regulation, it's essential to keep the cost of production as low as possible, not just to maximize profitability but to minimize consumer costs for energy.

To that end, the mining and extraction industry makes a concerted effort to address energy consumption in a number of key areas. These efforts, combined with good safety measures, keep the industry at maximum efficiency.

Minimizing Down Time

Stopped machinery is the enemy of energy efficiency. When a piece of equipment breaks down, everything around it idles. That means a whole fleet of trucks and excavation equipment is sitting around, engines gently purring along, with no energy heading out.

Good management is key, of course. Maintenance staff should be monitoring key components of each piece of equipment, monitoring fluid levels, and making preventive repairs when operations are shut down for the day. But it's also essential that equipment is built to last. Heavy-use elements of machinery should be built or upgraded to include wear solutions for the mining industry so that these crucial structural areas will last longer.

Managing Movement

As we already noted, idled machinery is expensive machinery. Systems are designed so that trucks don't have to wait to be loaded and loaders don't have to wait for trucks. If there's a pinch point where one function is outpacing the others, the operation will either increase the lagging area or decrease the overrunning area. Ocean-going vessels are carefully scheduled to minimize their offloading waits at the dock.

This also pertains to road design. Most mines and wells are located in remote areas that have no roads in place, so construction of all transportation routes is done by the mining company. Before they begin to build roads, they review easement and ownership arrangements, incline pitches, and other factors to make sure that the most efficient route is used. A five-minute increase in the round-trip time may not sound like much, but when dozens of trucks each day make the journey, the company has saved money by laying out the roads wisely.

Economizing Extraction

This is the most fundamental part of mine and well operation. Much of the process has been addressed above ground, but what's underground is important too.

The simple fact is that not all resources are economically feasible to remove. A seam of coal may be too thin to pay for the cost of removing the materials above and around it (known as "overburden") at current prices, so the company will leave that seam alone until prices rise. A field of oil or gas may likewise not contain enough barrels or cubic feet of petroleum to justify the cost associated with accessing it, so that area too is left alone until prices make it economically practical.

The most basic idea of drilling and mining for the resources needed to generate energy is simple: Use the least possible energy to generate the most possible energy. In an industry that has existed for decades, experience and research have covered a lot of ground toward this goal.